Tech officials downplay rise in misconduct statistics

Party life and college life appear more married than ever at Texas Tech, statistics show, but there's no bad behavior epidemic at the university, officials said.

Reports of student misconduct on Tech's campus have spiked about 70 percent since 2006, university discipline statistics show. The bulk of reports involve alcohol and marijuana use or possession, said discipline officials, who caution there are some simple explanations for the apparent spike: Tech had the third-largest student body in its history last fall, an almost fully staffed campus police department and a recently consolidated discipline office.

"Safety and security is on everyone's mind these days. Ultimately, the expectations of keeping a safe (campus) community are higher," said Michael Shonrock, the university's vice president of student affairs.

Students brushed aside the alarming numbers. Many said they haven't noticed a change in the campus atmosphere - partying and college have long gone hand in hand.

"It's just the age - you just move away from home and you're free to do what you want," said Ben Teconchuk, a 22-year-old junior from Clovis, N.M.

Raw numbers

Tech's discipline office had received 1,273 allegations of student misconduct from August 2007 to February 2008, compared with about 500 allegations in the two prior semesters.

The vast majority of the allegations were confirmed by the office and resulted in some type of punishment, most commonly mandatory alcohol or drug classes, reprimands or probation.

Roughly 36 percent of the latest reports involve drug possession or use, which university officials called concerning. But drinking among college students, they said, is nothing new and there are programs in place to address the behavior.

The rest of the reports represent mostly petty violations of the university's comprehensive code of conduct: lighting candles in dorm rooms, parking in reserved slots, violating dorm visiting hours, according to university officials. The Avalanche-Journal requested statistics about other violations earlier this month, but they had not been received at the time of this publication.

The majority of students who are referred to Tech's discipline office are freshmen and are males, said Ethan Logan, the director of Student Judicial Programs.

Last fall, Logan's office assumed responsibility for dealing with discipline issues in dorms and purchased more sophisticated software to better keep records and analyze trends. But officials still are learning how to use the software, he said.

"Until I have more longitudinal data, I can't tell you if this is just an anomaly year or if it's an increasing pattern," Logan said.

Common sense does explain some of the trends: For instance, freshmen spend more time on campus than upperclassmen. They are required to live there.

These days, it certainly should be harder to behave badly and elude authorities at Tech, where about 28,200 students were enrolled at last count.

Since August, six more officers have been added to the Tech Police Department, bringing the number of police officers on campus to 51, which is near the force's maximum authorized number of 54, said Col. Gordon Hoffman, a department spokesman.

Hoffman said the department hopes to hire three more officers.

Also within the last year, officers made new partnerships with dorm officials. Misconduct issues in dorm rooms are now supposed to be reported to campus police, who in turn notify the discipline office, Hoffman said.

For the most part, the discipline office doesn't get involved with off-campus issues.

"We have to respect the fact that they are adults living off campus, and adults who live next to adults hopefully are addressing adult problems in an adult manner. We are happy to receive calls about that and say we appreciate your concern and comments," Logan said.

Though anybody can refer a student to the office, most referrals come from police officers or dorm officials, Logan said.

Once Logan's office receives a referral, it investigates to determine if the student conduct code has actually been broken, and if so, what type of punishment should follow for the violator, he said.